Tag: Mammoth Hot Springs

The end is here today as this will be the last blog post from Capt Pappy on Fenn’s treasure.

Poker is a game of luck and without it your money soon becomes your opponent’s chips. Skill on the other hand increases the pay off when Lady Luck plays along and keeps you from going home early. The best players balance playing the odds with playing the player. The hand you hold is as good as the hand your challenger thinks it is. Reading others at the table makes or breaks those trying to be a winner.

Did Forrest Fenn hide a treasure with special meaning or is he on a bluff? What are the tells? His history, suggests many. One is the trickster. Tricksters never show their cards unless it is to mislead or taunt other players. They use the traits we all possess, both good and bad, to their advantage. They make great deals even with poor cards. They bluff, sand bag, over bet, under bet, pass, call and raise all while reading everyone at the table. Fenn is said to be a master of promotion. Is His treasure part of something being promoted?

If he did hide the treasure what does it promote? The book about his life sold out with sales soaring. Fenn says he does not “profit” from the sales. Money isn’t everything and with death looking him in the eye money loses its appeal. Behavioral psychology studies human behavior, yet science plays catch up to seasoned poke champs. They have models for why we do what we do. They think man does what he does to gain a positive reward or avoid a negative one.

Historically we see a pattern; first money, then power and at the end philanthropy. Most people won’t get to a level were they can play in such a high stakes game and for the majority just having something to leave their kids is enough. Those with more than enough look to leaving a legacy, a mark in history– a treasure perhaps.

Fenn’s left hand knows what his right hand is doing. He is making his move public and he worked hard to get on the national news scene. That isn’t easy and those who know how it’s done know it’s not done cheap. The treasure is not central to Fenn’s plan what is important is his memoirs. His history. We all want to know we “done good.” This is his statement to the world: “I done good.”

Fenn’s father was a principal in Lubbock, TX. Education was likely important to his father. In Fenn’s latest book Fenn’s lament leaks out for him not having more formal education is bothersome. He is wrong to believe the only good schools exist behind ivy covered walls. Fenn is educated far beyond the norm. Just the same its there and so it maybe the motivator to the chase a chance to be part of the history he missed in one of those jail cells keeping him from being in the game called the classroom.

With this in mind, now consider the following. Who would go out and make an impression inside a hollow at the bottom of a cottonwood tree about 8 1/2″ by 8 1/2″ with something heavy enough to imprint the soil to about 3″ deep? Who would go all the way to Yellowstone stop and walk into a valley of bison, wolves and bear then cross two streams in hopes to find a hollow at the bottom of a cottonwood just to leave an imprint? What are the odds of that? What are the chances of someone following their interpretation of a treasure poem being led to that very tree and finding the impression “in the wood”? What are the odds the three would be just down from Gary Brown’s home not too far from Mammoth Hot Springs and Soda Butte? What are the chances that the river the tree is on would be famous for fly fishing and where Forrest made money as a fishing guide? Millions to one by now but there’s more much more.

So here we are at the table. Fenn bets with a treasure and I call with my money, time and effort. He walks. Is he afraid he will give away his hiding place? Let’s follow out that possibility and see were it leads. I get a message saying no it was not hidden there but good try. So what’s the give away? Anyone? This is why a friend says he can’t tell me. How slow does he hope we are?

Fenn, I call! Are you bluffing or is the treasure gone? You said it was there in April it’s nearly June. Rules of poker say put up or dealer passes the pot. Its okay to let the public know what is the status on the treasure. You just might need to do it again… maybe much less bounty and a poem with more general clues. For me I have to walk now. Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me.

There are as many realities as people and in mine the treasure is real and it has been found. The chase ended in April and one or more of the “within 500 footers” are in the gold.

To the hunters everywhere, and to those who have come here, good luck may the next rainbow land in your front yard.

The 5th verse says if you are “in the wood.” The three references to the wood are: the three woods in the valley below Brown, the wood being the last set of trees before the canyon, and “in the wood” as the hollowed out tree that is the furthest down stream. The triple references to “look down quickly” come when you look down at the tree, then down inside the tree that is down from the others. And, then you are looking in the hollow where Fenn placed the treasure!

And so you may ask why am I giving away the treasure’s location? To paraphrase what Fenn said, “been there, done that.”

The place to “begin it” is not far from the northeast gate of YNP. Capt. Kidd hung out on Gardener Island but if he were in Gardener he could go into YNP any day of the year. Those who have read Fenn’s book will know about his “Captain Kidd” dream. Silver Gate is near Warm Springs and close to Soda Butte. The sign at Soda Butte describes how Soda Butte was once prolific but now has all but stopped– “Where warm waters halt.” On the first page I pointed out that each clue has three references. Here are the three for the starting point: Mammoth Hot Springs, Warm Springs and Soda Butte. Soda Butte is “far but too far to walk ” from the home of Brown (the Lamar Ranger Station.) Next time I will reveal the “blaze.”

This is the first of a set of answers to the poem that will lead to the very place that Forrest selected for his treasure. The poem has three rhyming lines per verse. It is a triplet. The main clues all refer to three things that identify the place to find the treasure.

Brown is the key needed to put the clues together. Only three verses are needed to find the treasure the other three verses just distract from the treasure’s location.

Here are the three references to the “key” Brown. Arthur Brown is a famous artist who’s only surviving water color of Yellowstone is of Mammoth Hot Springs. Gary A. Brown was a ranger and Assistant Director of Yellowstone National Park and he grew up in a cabin on the Lamar River. The cabin is shown in National Geographic and titled the Brown home. It is now the Lamar Ranger Research Station. The third reference is the Lamar Valley known by many rangers as Brown Valley for its many bears. If all goes well my next post will reveal which gate to enter to “Begin it.”